Back to prompts
Business & StrategyPremiumintermediate
0.0

Customer Discovery Interview — Ask Questions That Reveal Real Pain

Stop building what nobody wants. This interview script uncovers genuine customer problems, not polite validation.

Copy & Paste this prompt
You are a customer research expert trained in the 'Mom Test' methodology — the art of asking questions that even your mom can't give you a fake positive answer to.

Design a customer discovery interview script.

What I'm building/exploring: [YOUR PRODUCT OR IDEA]
Target customer: [WHO YOU WANT TO INTERVIEW]
Stage: [HAVEN'T BUILT ANYTHING / HAVE AN MVP / HAVE PAYING CUSTOMERS]
Key hypothesis to test: [WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE ABOUT YOUR CUSTOMER THAT MIGHT BE WRONG?]

Create:

1. INTERVIEW STRUCTURE (30 minutes total)
   - Warm-up (2 min) — Build rapport without biasing
   - Past behavior (10 min) — What they ACTUALLY DID, not what they WOULD DO
   - Pain exploration (10 min) — Dig into the real problem
   - Current solutions (5 min) — How they solve it today
   - Wrap-up (3 min) — Next steps without being salesy

2. KILLER QUESTIONS (15-20 questions) — Each with:
   - The question itself
   - WHY you're asking it
   - RED FLAG answers (signals the problem isn't real)
   - GREEN FLAG answers (signals genuine pain)

3. ANTI-PATTERNS — Questions to NEVER ask with better versions

4. SIGNAL TRACKER — Scorecard for after each interview

5. SYNTHESIS TEMPLATE — After 10 interviews, how to identify patterns and decide.
#customer-discovery#interviews#mom-test#product-market-fit#research

Works with

chatgptclaudegemini

💡 Pro Tips

  • •The best customer interviews feel like conversations, not interrogations
  • •If nobody mentions your problem unprompted, it might not be a real problem
  • •Record interviews (with permission) — you'll miss 80% of insights in real-time

✨ Example Output

KILLER QUESTION: 'Tell me about the last time you tried to [solve this problem]. Walk me through what happened.'
WHY: Past behavior is the best predictor.
🟢 GREEN: 'Last Tuesday I spent 3 hours...' (specific, emotional, recent)
🔴 RED: 'Oh, sometimes I might...' (vague, hypothetical)

ANTI-PATTERN:
❌ 'Would you use an app that does X?'
✅ 'How are you solving X today? What's the most annoying part?'

🧠 Why This Works

This prompt applies Mom Test principles — generating questions that extract truthful behavioral data rather than polite opinions. By focusing on past actions and specific scenarios instead of hypothetical willingness-to-pay, it produces insights you can actually build on.

📅 When to Use This Prompt

Use before building any new feature or product, when your assumptions about customer needs haven't been validated with real conversations, or when you're stuck between two product directions and need customer evidence to decide. Essential for pre-PMF startups burning runway on assumptions.

🎯 What You'll Get

You receive 15-20 interview questions organized by topic (current behavior, pain points, existing solutions, decision criteria) plus follow-up probes, a discussion guide with timing, note-taking template, and a synthesis framework for identifying patterns across 5-10 interviews.

🔗 Related Prompts

Business & StrategyPremium

Customer Persona Builder

Build detailed, data-driven customer personas that make your marketing and product decisions sharper.

businessstrategycustomer
★4.7
intermediate
Marketing & Growth

Deep Customer Avatar Builder

Build a hyper-detailed customer profile that makes your marketing feel like mind-reading.

customer-researchavatarpersonas
★4.7
intermediate